The Evolution and Importance of Advertising - Essay Example

?Advertisement Submitted: The Evolution and Importance of Advertising Introduction Advertising and promotionhas experienced several changes over the past years especially due to continuous changes in technology, methods of communication and media. Advertising is conducted through various methods, with the aim of transferring information to the consumers. Body Yester Years History of advertising can be traced back to the period of 3000 BC when the motive behind advertising was to spread information about slaves who have escaped and rewards were used to make people catch or inform to the authorities about these escaped slaves (Arens, 1999, p.34). During that period, advertising had little effect as very few individuals were literate enough to read and act according to those adverts. During this era the method of advertisement being used was written advertisements. To counter the problem of advertising to illiterate people, merchandisers used to put of sketches and carvings of items that represented their business. As schools and educational system started getting better, increase in literacy rate of the public made people aware of the use of advertising for the purpose of selling goods and services. The London Gazette were the first to publish an advertising supplement during 1662 and during 1704, Boston newsletter published advertisement for American goods and services for the first time ever in history of advertisement (Crystal, 1997, p.91 and 94). During the era of written advertisement, other types of adverts were even in play; one of such methods was town criers. Town crier refers to an individual who publicly announces information; this was a good method to communicate with those who still were illiterate. These individuals used to roam around a particular town announcing different types of information such as public policies, goods and services that are being sold and news paper information. Town criers are recognized the first form of aural broadcasters as they orally provided information in live form to a particular audience who were in the surrounding areas (Russell, 1993, p.25). This means of advertisement was considered better as this information was obtained by people in first hand form as compared to magazines and a newspaper in which the information is reaches the public after a short delay. Current Scenario Previously information used to target a larger market and advertisements were expected to bring in huge amount of returns. Now, advertisements are more niches based due to increase in merchandisers focus on customer niches. Consumer awareness have increased due to changes in educational system, now consumers can easily tell when they are being cheated or being manipulated into buying goods and services and when wrongful information is being provided to them. Advertisers have to involve huge amount of time and effort while conducting the process of creating and delivering advertisements as consumers nowadays have become tech savvy. Today, a merchandiser cannot depend on one or two tools of advertisement in order to gain the attention of consumers. Currently, if businesses have to make their advertising operations successful, they have to use Integrated Marketing Communication. Integrated Marketing Communication refers to the use of all tools and resources available for advertising to gain consumers attention. These tools range from mobile phones to internet communities, blogs and social networks. Importance of Economy and Managers Economics rule states that when consumers have more money, they tend to spend more and save less, keeping this concept in view, economy has a major impact on advertiser’s efforts. If advertisement is conducted during the period of economic down trend, when the unemployment rate is high and people have less money to spend, the efforts of advertisement fail as during that time period, people tend to spend less and save more. All businesses have a specific budget especially for advertising purpose. A manager’s responsibility is to increase profits for the organization and for this purpose managers of marketing departments have to very carefully devise a marketing plan that focuses especially on the key area of marketing called target market. A Target market consist of all those individuals for whom the product or service has been designed and created and the aim of the advertisers is to attract the target market towards these products and services. In previous years, first a particular good and service used to be created and then advertising used to be done in order to sell the product. Now first the needs of consumers are identified and then a product or service is created according to the needs of the consumers. The method now used is more successful as the products demand is determined before the product is actually launched and available for sale. Consumers have become very selective in buying goods and services and due to this; marketers have started focusing on niche marketing. Consumers now tend to purchase goods and services that are especially designed for their use and for people that use such goods and services. The scenario has changed, previously marketers used to create advertisements that focused on different groups together, but due to changes in preferences and taste, marketers have to target small or individual groups and design their advertisements according to that individual group’s preferences and taste. For example: Toyota company is offering three kinds of cars, these includes Sedans, SUVs and coupes, these vehicles are targeted towards different kinds of customers, that have different income range and they have different habits, attitudes, behaviours and perceptions (Babin, 2011, p.13). When Toyota is advertising its range of cars, they keep in mind the target market of each car and develop advertisements according to the target market. For example: while advertising for consumers who prefer comfort over income while purchasing a vehicle, Toyota tends to advertise comfort while targeting these consumers. Advertisers and managers even have to be careful while selecting the medium of advertisement; they have to advertise in accordance to the media that is highly accessed by their target customers. Conclusion Advertisement scenario has changed over the years, previously there were few advertisement mediums and focus used to be on advertising to huge number of people. Now, advertising requires the use of Integrated Marketing communication in which all the tools of advertisement have to be used to get a particular message through. References Arens, W. F. (1999). Contemporary advertising. Boston: Irwin /McGraw-Hill. Babin, B. J., & Harris, E. G. (2011). CB2. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning. Crystal, D. (1997). English as a global language. Cambridge [England: Cambridge University Press. Russell, T., Lane, W. R., & Kleppner, O. (1993). Kleppner's advertising procedure. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice Hall. Read More